Range of Light by Scott Neuffer

Edited by Jamie Rich Proofread by Grace Nehls

RANGE OF LIGHT Copyright Š 2020 Scott Neuffer All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please write to the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by BHC Press Library of Congress Control Number: 2019938913 ISBN: 978-1-948540-92-6 (Hardcover) ISBN: 978-1-948540-93-3 (Softcover) ISBN: 978-1-948540-94-0 (Ebook) For information, write: BHC Press 885 Penniman #5505 Plymouth, MI 48170

Visit the publisher: www.bhcpress.com

RANGE OF LIGHT

PART ONE

H

e wakes to the sound of the river running through the middle of the valley. A faint but persistent murmuring. The sound of eternity. Along with pines around his camp sighing, stiffening, in the first light, the wind. And birds starting in the thickets. Chirps piercing the air like glass tears.

He feels so spiritual in the mornings. Uninhibited. Free to roam the soft spaces before the chirps grow louder, heavier. But he wouldn’t consider himself religious. His father was religious, but he never was.

He left churches years ago. Whatever life offers him now—the rocks and trees, the light and wind, the sound of mountain water—he takes as enough. He wonders if a single flower is enough.

His campsite is close to the road. He’s been rotating his tent between several sites to appease the rangers. Now, on the floor of his tent, he organizes his provisions for the day. He lays a pair of swimming trunks, a fleece sweater, and two apples onto a towel, folds the sides, and rolls it up as tightly as he can. He slips the bundle into his daypack. The supplies he originally brought into the park are running out. He hasn’t fished as much as he thought he would, and he knows he needs more protein. Every other day he’s been cutting open a can of tuna with the knife Red Cloud gave him. A bone-handled hunting knife with random nicks in the blade. It’s become an unappetizing chore, eating tuna, and today he’s heading up the mountain to see what he can find. Maybe a good fishing stream or somewhere off-trail where he can snare game in secret. He has no plans to leave the park.

He shoves a green plastic canteen and a water filter into the outer slots of his pack. Sunscreen and bug repellent round out the day’s provisions. He zippers them all together. No camera, though. He doesn’t have a camera and wouldn’t want to take pictures anyway. He does have a journal, a leather-bound notebook and knife-sharpened pencil he takes everywhere. He keeps them together in the right pocket of his

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cargo shorts. Before leaving the tent, he finds the half-empty bottle of foot oil and begins rubbing some onto his bare heels, the arch of each foot, his toes blistered like tree bark. The oil smells of peppermint. As he slides dirty socks over his feet, thinking how he needs to do better with his laundry, too, he glances at the pair of briefcases wedged in the corner of the tent, covered by his flannel sleeping bag. Inside them, he knows, stacked like bricks, are two million dollars in cash.

Walking toward the road, he can see the cliffs of Yosemite Falls.

The granite glows in the morning light like a painted backdrop. A cartoonish plaster of pink and gray. Black specks of birds twirl around the water’s white threads. He breathes in the scene with a feeling of appreciation. The air fresh and cool and summer-scented. Then he stops beneath an apple tree. He grabs an apple and cleans it with the inside of his shirt. He bites into its pale, sour flesh. When he’s finished, he tosses the core back into the forest.

In the parking lot along the road, he sees something strange: a woman approaching a deer with a paper cup. It’s a young stag with fuzzy antlers, prodding in the fugitive grass between two cars. Though slim, the woman has the drooping look of someone in their late forties.

She’s wearing a short-brim cap of camouflage design, a blue tank top from which a white bra strap slouches, tight khaki capris, a tan fanny pack around her waist, and a pair of hiking boots he knows to be cheap.

She’s an attractive woman, and he feels a warm stir of desire. It’s been months, maybe years, since he’s had a woman, and he’s forgotten the pleasant, head-emptying rush of arousal.

She’s bending over in front of him with a paper cup from McDonald’s in her right hand, which she offers to the deer.

“Come on,” she says. “It’s just water.”

The deer stops nibbling on the grass and looks up at the woman.

She steps closer, raises the paper cup, and shakes it in front of the deer’s face as though tumbling dice.

“Go ahead, you precious creature. It’s water. Just like you drink from the river.”

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The deer’s eyes are round and bright like acorns. His hide and antlers are lighter variations of brown but just as bright. Used to the bizarre spectacle of human beings, the young buck suffers no fleeing instinct as the woman inches closer. His nostrils flare to smell the air.

Her scent is strange. She smells like other humans, but also of something curious. Like something he once found swirling on the surface of the river, between the mossy stones.

She mistakes the deer’s curiosity for fear.

“Come on, sweet thing, don’t be scared.”

She shakes the cup again.

“I wouldn’t do that,” the man says.

He steps to the side of her, realizing he’s been staring at her ass.

“Excuse me?” she rebuffs, standing back up.

“I wouldn’t try to feed the deer. It’s not a good idea. That little guy doesn’t look like much, but if you spook ’im, he could do some damage with that rack.”

“I know what I’m doing. Deer aren’t dangerous.”

He laughs.

“Okay, but I don’t think he’s gonna drink from a McDonald’s cup with all the streams and rivers around.”

She looks indignant. He can see clotted redness in the corners of her light blue eyes, from allergies or sleeplessness or crying or some combination of all three. She has a plain face, with rags of ashy blonde hair hanging from the sides of her camo cap. Her mouth is petite and dainty like the corolla of a flesh-colored flower. It would be cute in a smile, he thinks, though her lips now bend in a frown.

“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be a jerk, but you really shouldn’t feed wild animals.”

Seeing that the woman is ignoring him, the young buck nuzzles the paper cup with his nose. A plug of moist black velvet testing the glossy work of the logo.

Startled, the woman turns back to the deer, gasping in delight.

“See! You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.”

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Disappointed with the texture of the cup, though, the deer turns from the two strangers and moves to another line of grass.

The man wants to laugh but restrains himself.

“I’m Stamer,” he says. “Stamer Stone.”

The woman feels the familiar burn of shame in her cheeks, her ears. She freezes with the cup in her hand as the deer moseys away. She wants to hit this man standing behind her, but she can’t face him.

“You scared him,” she says.

She throws the water onto the ground with the force of a shotgun blast. Then she turns to face him. She glares at him long enough to notice the wiry build of his body. He’s wearing a floppy, sand-colored sun hat with a beaded chin strap that hangs unfastened against his chest.

Brown cargo shorts and hiking boots make his finely haired, suntanned shins indistinguishable from the thousands of tourists in the valley, but the close fit of his gray T-shirt, the apparent firmness of his torso, and the veiny muscles of his arms suggest he’s in better shape than most of them. She can see white whiskers in his beard, though he doesn’t look older than fifty. His white face is not handsome by traditional standards, the nose a little too big, the grayish eyes a little too small, but it does exude a quizzical charm, a quiet confidence. She feels the first invisible tug of attraction. Like the buck, she has grown curious in a matter of seconds, but then remembers the empty cup in her hand.

“Whatever, just mind your own business,” she tells him.

She heads off toward the restrooms at the edge of the parking lot.

“Wait!” Stamer calls after her. “Don’t be mad!”

He follows her between the parked cars of the last row.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Why do you want to know my name?” she yells back.

Stamer stops and watches her disappear around the corner of the building. With a random burst of energy, he sprints up the lane and cuts her off in the shade of the bathroom door.

“I have to tell the rangers who was feeding the animals.”

She halts with spooked eyes.

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“Hey, just teasing. I thought we had something going on back there, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Are you stalking me? This isn’t funny.”

Stamer puts his hands up.

“Sorry, my mistake.”

He backs away while facing her, hands still up. Then he turns and walks away, making sure she sees him shaking his head in disappointment.

She spreads toilet paper, as rough as sandpaper, on the toilet seat.

No plumbing. A black hole stares up at her, exhaling a warm, noxious stench. She can make out lumpy deposits of black and brown eroding into pools of pulpy, murky green. The colors and textures and smells of a nightmare.

She pulls down her pants and sits on the crude ring of toilet paper, thinking she can prevent whatever’s down there from coming up. But the thought of something biting her makes her cringe. She relaxes just enough to urinate.

“My name?” she whispers to herself. “Why would you want to know my name?”

Her name is Dorle Wasser. She is a forty-six-year-old waitress who recently lost her husband to divorce and her daughter to the courts. She presses her face into her palms, eyes closed. In the heated impressions, she sees grapevines, green stars cascading over each other. She sees the glistening floor of the courtroom. The polished wood of the desks and benches. The judge with his red face, his black-wire glasses, his stringy red hair combed over a shiny bald spot. Chester Winfield is dead.

“It wasn’t my fault,” she whispers. 





THE CROWDS ARE GATHERING at the bus stop. Asians. Hispanics. Stinky Europeans with pink mohawks. Stamer has fallen in love with these visitors. He sees before him a great experiment of humanity. Every

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morning, the participants gather at the bus stop for the shuttle that will take them to the head of the valley. They come alone, or in pairs, or in groups, but each unit comes with its own aspirations for the day. He knows the relative strength of those aspirations will be tested against the constant variables of granite, trees, and waterfalls. The greater the aspiration, the greater the risk of failure.

“Good morning,” he says to a group of Indian women.

There are three of them. A grandmotherly woman with a red bindi on her forehead and thick white braids that curl together like a cat’s tail against the dark, withered skin of her neck. A motherly woman also with a red dot on her forehead and graying black hair in oval plaits that hang between the puffy shoulders of an apricot-colored blouse. And a daughterly woman with lighter skin and hair as black as coffee but no red dot on her forehead. They are dressed by degrees of generational decorum: the grandmother in a maroon sari that covers most of her body; the mother in jeans and the summer blouse that shows most of her arms; and the daughter in gray gym shorts that show her legs and a purple halter top that shows her shoulders and the naked round tops of her breasts.

“Where are you heading?” Stamer asks.

The grandmother bows her head, sternly, as if ashamed of the question. The mother looks annoyed but forces a smile.

“The Mist Trail,” she says.

Stamer smiles back.

“I’m headed that way as well. Going to see the falls?”

“Yes. Vernal Falls.”

“Well, be careful hiking up there. I heard it can be slippery.”

“Thank you,” the mother says.

She turns away from him, like she’s shielding her family from further inquisition. Within seconds they’re lost in the blooming crowd.

Stamer imagines the grandmother’s feet, the calluses on her heels and toes, a toothed, whitish crust over the dark skin. He thinks how she must have made similar pilgrimages in India, laboring up canyons of

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burnished stone, tracing sacred waters that run from the heart of the country.

He turns to face the oncoming bus. The crowds shift in an instant, just as the birds around the falls shift in the wind. He finds himself in the back of the line, falling back as more people surge forward.

“Excuse me,” says a heavyset woman with a British accent.

She stretches out and waves both arms like a traffic director at an intersection. Her giant breasts, each the size of a tether ball, swing back and forth. Her head swivels left then right, left then right. Her right arm strikes the empty space in front of her, while her left arm drops behind and pulls forth a tubby man with cherry-red cheeks and a sky-blue visor.

“Excuse us for the commotion, my young man,” he says.

He sounds like the cheerful keep of a backwater pub. His thick legs waddle without bending. His wife’s enormous breasts swell against Stamer’s chest.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been called young,” Stamer says.

The man grins, the crowd shuffles.

“Grab my arm,” the man instructs. “Hold on for dear life. Mother will guide us.”

As Stamer is dragged through the human menagerie he hears strange languages chiming in his ears. When the woman steps onto the bus, lifting the two men behind her, Stamer collides with a Chinese man. A camera falls and hits the road with a crack.

“Sorry,” the man says, scrambling to retrieve the device.

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Stamer apologizes.

He catches the heads of the British couple bobbing on the other side of the bus windows.

“Shit,” he mumbles.

He moves himself and the man to the side of the door. The man is looking down at the camera in his hands the way a mother looks at a sick child. He blows on a fresh dent at the corner of the camera body.

A quick interplay of his fingers produces a series of beeps and whirrs.

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“I hope nothing broke,” Stamer says.

When the man looks up, Stamer discovers a smooth and handsome face. Behind glasses shaped like inverted trapezoids are sharp, amber eyes conveying an unusual intelligence, a sensibility so refined and urbane that it seems out of place in the mountains. His thin lips look especially designed for a cigarette in a noir film. A wave of black hair sweeps across his eyes when his head moves.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s a well-designed camera.”

His voice is smart and effeminate. It sounds like the elegant smoke of that noir cigarette, if such a winding smoke could speak, or like rain falling on a dense city, hissing on a silk banner in a dark alleyway, or like a paintbrush swishing redly over a canvas.

Stamer remembers a business trip to China years ago. Rice wine and sweet dumplings. A restaurateur in a black suit and orange ascot, the latter like an exotic tuft of hair. There were dance girls and vague pleasures later in the darkness of the hotel, he remembers. The morning was a hot-orange cloud of smog. Then the runway, the metal jet a long glint against the plastic skyline.

“Digital?” he asks the man.

“Yes, a Canon.”

“Here, let’s get on the bus.”

Their moment of intimacy collapses as hands and arms and elbows jam their space.

“That’s all we can take, folks,” the bus driver says after the two men have stepped onto the grooved metal platform.

The driver is a middle-aged woman with gray hair and glasses.

She pulls the lever that closes the door with a hydraulic clunk. The two men move to the aisle, which is packed full of people both standing and sitting. With the same force she deployed in closing the doors, the driver now grabs the transceiver hung in a tangle of black cord beside the giant steering wheel.

“Keep moving to the back,” her voice cranks over the intercom.

“You in the cowboy hat, yeah, I can see you. Keep going, bronc buster!”

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Stamer catches the driver’s face in the oblong convex mirror above the windshield. Her face is a mean gray point in the shining bulge. He wants to pinch it like a zit.

The passengers plod toward the back, and Stamer and his new acquaintance grip the ceiling rail. The British couple waves from the rear seat. Stamer waves back half-heartedly, knowing he won’t make it that far.

“You in the gray shirt, keep moving,” the driver’s voice cracks over the speakers. “Are you deaf or just ignorant?”

Stamer doesn’t know she’s talking to him until the Chinese man taps him on the shoulder and nods in her direction.

“It’s okay, Jeremiah Johnson, I get paid by the hour, so I’ll just wait.”

Stamer’s disoriented. His new friend has found a seat, but he’s still reeling against the serried faces, the aisle, the gray point in the yellow mirror, more faces, then a man in a Smokey-the-Bear hat.

“You can sit next to me,” the ranger says. “Don’t mind Gina up there. She’s just trying to make everyone’s trip extra special.”

Stamer laughs, uncertainly, and sits down.

“Randy,” the ranger says, sticking out his hand.

“Stamer.” He manages a quick handshake.

“Interesting name. Where you headed today, Stamer?”

“The Mist Trail.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

The ranger reaches down and tightens the laces of his hiking boots, twisting in a torsional manner as he works. Stamer notices the wool sock on the man’s nearest ankle has slipped enough to show ghost-white flesh beneath the tan line, remarkably pale compared to the sun-darkened skin of the calf and the park uniform of khaki shorts and tan button-up shirt.

“Well now, ready for the trail—”

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Stamer’s not sure if the man is asking a question or making a statement. The bus lurches forward, and the ranger’s head smacks the seat in front of him.

“Damn woman,” he grunts. “I’ll tell you something, I get real sick of her attitude.”

Through the window Stamer can see Dorle standing at the back of the resurgent crowd. She rocks back and forth on her feet, smiles at random people—quick, fleeting smiles—and he thinks she’s beautiful. Her image shrinks as the bus moves forward, then the ranger’s hat blocks his view.

“Not going up to Half Dome, are you?” the ranger asks.

“No, not this time.”

“Good to hear it. Had a nasty fatality up there a few nights ago.”

Stamer heard about the death from other campers. Now he envisions the summit, the steel cables running up scoured stone like tracks of a defunct cable car, and finally that tilting head rush over the edge into some windy and godly view of the valley below—a perfect green gash where glaciers cut the mountain.

“Sometimes the summer storms come in quick,” the ranger says.

“The sky darkens. The darkness just falls on you. Well, the poor man was coming down. I was at the bottom of the cables, and I was yelling at him to hurry the hell up. Everyone else had made it down, and they were just hanging out. I guess they were waiting for me, even though I was telling them to go down the trail. Some were yelling at the guy.

There were a couple college kids, too, gawking at me and gawking at the poor fool. They had the biggest, goofiest smiles. Their eyes were wild and giddy, like they were watching the damn circus. Then the lightning hit. It cracked and sounded like a million windows breaking.

The currents chased him down the cables and caught him right in the middle. Everyone was shouting at him to let go, but he held on, even grabbed ’em tighter. He fell down on his knees, and you could see the electricity going through him. The currents were like snakes swarming him. He tried to stand back up, but they just kept pulling him down.

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He started screaming, these horrible screams, and his head flung back to the sky, and you could see his teeth on fire. Well, I’ll tell you something, that poor man lit up like a sparkler. Sparks were coming out of his eyes. You could smell him burning—” Sparkler. That was the word Stamer was searching for earlier in the week.

He pulls out his journal as the ranger’s still talking and finds the entry.

July? August? I know the year is 2011. I don’t know the exact date.

But I saw the light dancing on the water. It reminded me of— “Can you stop now?” he asks the ranger, knowing the recent fatality was caused by falling, not lightning.

He’s not sure why the ranger is lying.

The ranger’s brow tightens, his eyes small and petulant. He has the same mean, pointed face of the bus driver, of authority petrified and unquestioned.

“Sorry, just too much for me,” Stamer explains.

The ranger swallows a scowl.

“That’s okay. Some people don’t like a good story.”

At the last stop at the head of the valley, Stamer exits the bus and finds a bench to sit on. He’s about to start writing in his journal when he thinks of the blonde woman trying to nourish a deer with a paper cup. He chuckles with affection. He wants to wait for her but thinks how creepy it would look.

He slips his journal back into his shorts and walks toward the stone bridge over the Merced River. The bus-dropped tourists are creating a ruckus at a nearby concession stand, but the second Stamer steps onto the clear, uncluttered road he feels at peace. Morning light hangs from the boughs of dark conifers like lambent gauze. Streaks of light touch the forest floor. The trees themselves smell of Christmas, of summer, of Christmas and summer wrapped together. Sparkler, he remembers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Scott Neuffer—author of Range of Light and Scars of the New Order—is a writer, journalist, poet, and musician who lives in Nevada with his family. His work has appeared in Nevada Magazine, Foreword Reviews, Underground Voices, Construction Literary Magazine, Shelf Awareness, Entropy Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. He’s also the founder and editor of the literary journal Trampset. His indie rock music is available on Apple Music and Spotify.

Follow him on Twitter @scottneuffer @sneuffermusic @trampset